Breath of Life Ventura Triathlon - Olympic Course - TriathlonOlympic

Very wide starting zone on beach, so our wave (which was not large to start with) was well spread out by the time we were past the breakers. As usual, I set up well to the outside, but was able to move in toward the buoy line sooner than I typically do. First race in sleeveless wetsuit had me a little concerned as to how I'd handle the water temperature, but it was fine. (Only issue is the nuisance of the zipper pull cord wrapping around my armpit...never notice that with my fullsuit.)

Oddly enough, though some of us commented before the start about how it might be difficult to sight off the Coast Guard boat positioned by the first buoy given the swell, sighting was actually easier going out than coming back to the beach, where the main guide was a set of helium balloon that tended to be lost in the palm tree line when we were all the way out at the final turn buoy.

This course had to be extremely short. I felt like I had a good swim, but I'm very skeptical that I did a 1500m swim in under 1:30 per 100 yds.

Not much, really. But the fact that the course had to be short is underscored by my supposedly averaging under 1:30/100 yet finishing 181st of 422. Not likely.

Both transitions are included in the bike split for this race, which is annoying. This time I was diligent about using my Timex IM watch to grab all my splits (including run from water to the mat entering T1), so I have accurate times for transitions.

Not worn gloves. I always do (for a couple reasons), but this time I thought about skipping them. But I went ahead and wore them. Only takes--literally--a couple seconds to pull them on, but it's the time removing them in T2 that I'd probably like to have back.

Windier this year than last and it felt like the wind picked up during the second half of the ride. I got a little higher speed with my new bike than I put up here last year, but fell just a tiny bit short of my goal of averaging over 21 mph. I felt like I passed a few more people than I did last year, but I still have a ways to go with the bike.

During the first half of the race, I was feeling a lot of tightness in upper hamstrings. I tried to let that govern my effort to some degree: That was what did me in at my first international distance race last year and I didn't want that experience again. Felt more relaxed during second of the two big loops on the course, but I note that my speed dropped then, too.

I'd trashed the speed sensor for my wireless bike computer and am awaiting a replacement. So I wore my Garmin, but never looked at it. Decided to ride this one by cadence (since I didn't trash the cadence sensor). Managed to successfully hold between 88 and 94 for almost the whole race.

Maybe push a bit harder the second half of the ride. Finished strong, but I was so concerned about not blowing up my hammies like I did at Desert Tri last year, that I may have taken it a little easy for part of the ride. That said, I could tell the wind was picking up a bit during the second half, so I was having to work harder when I was riding toward the beach then.

This went well enough. Not my fastest, but my no means my slowest.

Not worn gloves on the bike. Didn't take long to remove, but I would have liked 3 seconds from somewhere in this race...see below.

Good run. I was a bit afraid I'd trashed my legs with speed work (run and bike) this week, but my time was identical to last year's for all intents and purposes. Wanted to be sub-45 and got it. As with last year, passed a ton of people and finished with a big kick. I can tell this was a stronger field than last year, though, by the fact that a handful more people passed me.

Achilles injury started to ache on second lap, but it didn't really slow me down.

Nothing, really. This was the only segment where I didn't beat last year's time, but given the volume of my peak IM training going on now and minor Achilles inflammation, I can't complain about basically equalling it.

Some jogging, some walking, some eating. Watched Liz come in...she hit her goal of sub-3 hours...very proud of her.

I'd thought I'd get in the top 10 in my AG if I got around 2:25 and I was right. Thought that'd be enough to get me an AG Nationals qualification. I was wrong. Top 33% (rounded) get in...there were fewer guys in my AG this year (big surprise) and I needed to finish 9th.

I missed 9th by 2.9 seconds. 2.9 seconds. Sheesh. Lots of places I could have picked that up, of course, but you can't know that going in or during the race. I was thrilled that I hit my goal time.

But next time I won't wear the gloves. ;)


Not a lot. First sub-2:30 Oly and a PR by 7:17. I'd guess that the swim course was short by about 90 seconds worth of distance, so I'm sure I would still have easily been under 2:30 had the distance been right.


Really good race for a good cause. Flat course built for PRs. Free food and beer post race.